Second Chances
by Scarletfern
Summary: In which I stubbornly refuse to accept that Roman is dead. Or, Jane hallucinates Roman's death and he manages to escape before the FBI arrives.


**NOOOOOO, ROMAN! *sobs forever***

 **Disclaimer: I do not own Blindspot or any of these characters**

…

Roman flinched, hearing a car door slam. A few moments passed, and then he heard a pair of footsteps, slowly closing in on him. He closed his eyes and braced himself. It had to be either Blake or someone from the FBI, coming to finish him off. As the footfalls drew closer, he realized that they belonged to Jane. Funny how, after all that time apart, he could still identify her presence by something as simple as the sound of her footsteps.

He looked up when he heard her stop beside him.

"Roman…" Jane's handgun slipped from her fingers as she dropped to her knees.

"It's too late," Roman whispered.

"Who did this?" Jane demanded, pressing her hands against the gunshot wound, trying to staunch the bleeding. He winced. There was no point answering that question. Blake was long gone.

"I'm sorry," he said, his voice breaking. He had put her through hell and yet here she was, desperately trying to save his life.

"I know, I know. Me too."

"I never got out. I never got out of that hole."

"That's not true." He didn't have a response to that. They had come from the same place. She had escaped. He hadn't. It was as simple as that. She'd gotten a second chance. The only problem with that was that her second chance was slowly killing her.

"Here," Roman said, pressing the locked drive into her hands. It wasn't completely foolproof, but the partial cure he had found would at least give her a little more time with her family before the ZIP poisoning destroyed her brain completely.

"What is it?" She asked, peering closely at the patterns engraved into the shiny silver metal before looking back up at him, eyes full of tears. He wasn't going to answer that. She and her team would easily figure it out, that he was sure of.

Suddenly, Jane gasped. Her hand, still covered with his blood, flew up to her forehead. She gritted her teeth in pain and squeezed her eyes shut.

"Jane?!" Roman exclaimed. _She's starting to get the headaches…_

"I-I'm… fine. I've been getting these weird headaches… sometimes I pass out...

 _I have to tell her…_

"Jane, listen, the ZIP, it's poisoning us. You have to unlock that drive and get the rest of the information! It's your only chance-" He broke off his sentence, watching in horror as his sister crumpled to the ground, unconscious.

"Jane!"

…

Hissing through his teeth, Roman pulled the blood-covered t-shirt over his head. Breathing heavily, he tied it tightly around his waist, hoping that it would stem the flow of the bleeding until he could get the gunshot wound taken care of. He knew of an old friend of their parents' that was once a doctor. He could go there to get patched up once he got Jane taken care of.

Gasping, he stood up and began to stagger towards Jane's car. He couldn't exactly carry her to it in his condition. He would have to drive it a little closer to the tree.

After pulling up close to the tree, he put the car in park and got out. Half carrying and half dragging her, he finally got Jane into the passenger seat.

The gunshot wound hurt like hell, but it wasn't anything he hadn't been through before. And the endurance training that Shepherd had put he and Remi through all those years ago? It was probably the only helpful thing she'd done to either of them. At the time, it had been a nightmare. But now? Now, he was excessively grateful for it.

He gritted his teeth and slammed the car door, before limping back to the tree. The drive had slipped from Jane's fingers when she had lost consciousness and he had to go back for it. Everything would be for nothing if they lost it. He scooped it up from the dirt and went back to the car, beginning to weigh his options.

 _I could stage a car accident. That way, when she comes around, she can just call someone from her team. They'll make sure that she's alright. For the time being, anyway._

He drove down the road for a few minutes until he came to a slight curve. Stopping the vehicle, he reached over and pulled a seatbelt around Jane. There was a drop off, but it wasn't too far down. Bracing himself for the impact, he purposefully drove the car off the road.

The dull, throbbing ache that had been in his side immediately switched to an outright stabbing pain as the back tires hit the ground with a jolt. He gave himself a moment to recover before forcing himself up and out of the driver's seat. He moved around to the passenger's side and pushed Jane behind the wheel. He wondered how long he had until she regained consciousness. One thing was for sure, he had to hurry.

He took the USB drive and looped the chain around her neck. Grabbing her phone, he thumbed through her contacts until he found Patterson's number. He selected it and quickly typed out _"Roman is dead, send help."_ He pressed send and quickly wiped the phone of his fingerprints, before tossing it down on the center console. It immediately began to vibrate with an incoming call. Unsurprisingly, it was Patterson. He knew that he didn't have much time before the feds showed up. He had to be long gone by then.

"Goodbye, sis. I'm sorry. For everything. Good luck."

With a sharp breath, he slammed the door and began to limp down the road, back towards his car. As soon as he got the gunshot wound taken care of, he had to continue his research. He had to find a permanent cure for the ZIP poisoning… Otherwise, both he and Jane would be dead in a matter of months.

…

Jane slowly comes around to the insistent buzzing of her phone. She glances at the caller ID. _Patterson_ , the screen displays.

She puts a hand to her forehead, trying to focus through the pounding in her skull.

 _Think, Jane. Where are you?_ _What just happened?_

That's when she notices the drying blood, thickly coating her hands and clothing. She stares at herself in horror. _What happened? What did I do? Oh my god…_

Her phone is still buzzing. She grabs it off of the console and answers, shaking.

"Jane! I've called you like ten times! Are you okay? What the hell is going on?"

"Patterson… what's… what… There's blood… blood, everywhere…"

"Okay, it's okay… Can you tell me where you are? I'm trying to trace your phone. Do you remember anything?"

"I-I-I'm not… I can't… I-I think I had a car accident…?"

"Okay. Are you hurt? Do you remember texting me?"

"No… wait… Roman? He…" She trailed off in horror. This blood… It was her brother's blood. The next time she spoke, it came out as a broken wail.

"Roman!" She flung the car door open and stumbled into the clearing, still clutching her cell phone desperately.

"Jane!" Patterson said, "Stay where you are. I've got your location. I'm sending Reade your way now, okay?"

"No! No, I-I have to find him! I have to save him… If I-I can just stop th-the bleeding…"

"Jane," Patterson whispered through the phone carefully, "When you texted me… you told me he was… dead."

"No! No… no… no… Roman!" She screamed, pleadingly, into the fading sunlight.

"All I remember," she sobbed through the phone a few moments later, "is that he said he didn't want to die! He said he was sorry-"

She trailed off, broken, as Patterson gently said "Jane. Don't move. Reade is on his way. Kurt is coming with him. Now, I need you to-"

"Patterson, I need him! I-I-I need my brother." Jane whispered hoarsely, still stumbling around the empty clearing. Dimly, she thought it looked a bit different than she remembered, but she didn't overthink it. Patterson didn't give her a chance to.

"Jane! Listen to me. You can't help him now. He's gone. I know, it hurts, but you have to listen to me. Okay?"

Another sob escaped as she whispered "Okay."

"Alright, it has to be getting dark there, right?"

"It's dusk." Jane told her, monotone.

"Alright. Can you go wait in the car? Kurt and Reade will be there in ten minutes. Rich is on the phone with them right now."

Numbly, she walked back to the car. Patterson must've heard her shut the door, because she exhaled and said "Okay. Good. Just stay on the line with me, alright?

"Okay."

"Now, can you tell me what you remember?" Patterson asked soothingly.

"He said he didn't want to die. He'd been shot. I don't think he told me who did it… I can't remember," she choked out.

"Okay, what's the next thing you remember?"

Jane wracked her brain, trying to remember something, anything about what happened after Roman died. She couldn't. "After that, I woke up in the car and you were calling me. I think I must've passed out while I was driving and run out of the road. The car is at the bottom of an embankment. But I can't remember any of that."

"Jane! You could've driven off the side of the mountain!"

"I know," she said, wincing. "But Patterson? The fainting and the headaches aren't the only things that have been happening to me."

"Go on…"

"I'm missing time. Like, I'll go for a run and then not remember leaving the apartment. Not usually anything important…" She trailed off, cringing. "Just… really short memory lapses."

"Jane, that isn't normal. You have to see a doctor as soon as you get home!"

"I know… I will. But right now… I'm just… tired." At that point, she lapsed into silence. Patterson didn't force her to answer any more questions; she knew exactly how Jane was feeling. Still, she didn't hang up. Hanging up seemed to be the equivalent of leaving Jane alone and that probably wasn't a great idea.

A few minutes later, she spoke up. "Kurt and Reade are there, Jane."

Jane opened the car door and was barely three steps into the clearing before she found herself pulled tightly against Kurt's chest.

"Are you okay?" They both asked at the same time.

"The doctor said I would live," he answered, giving her a long look. "You?"

"No. I'm not alright. Roman is dead," she whispered, tears running down her cheeks.

Smoothing her hair back, he started to say something. Then, he stopped.

"What is that?" Jane looked at him in confusion. "The thing hanging around your neck," he clarified, taking it in his hand.

Jane looked at the metal object in confusion. There was something about it… Something she just couldn't _quite_ remember…

"Did Roman give this to you?"

"I… Yeah? I think?" She was pretty sure. That was the only logical answer, wasn't it?

He looked at her strangely. "Do you still have Patterson on the line? Let me talk to her."

…

 _"Any change since we left?"_

" _No. She's still the same."_

 _"You need to come back in."_

Roman had tapped both Jane's and Weller's phones a long time ago. He'd never really needed to listen. Now, he was relieved that he had done it when he'd had the chance. If he hadn't, he never would've known that Jane was in the hospital. And he wouldn't know the details.

That the progression was worse than he had feared.

And that they were running out of time.


End file.
